Mr Mascellani's Musings

Chicken.
Chicken?
Chicken!
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Chicken?
Chicken!

Artie put the barrel of the gun
into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
He believed this to be
the best solution to his problems:

Lonely,
luckless in love,
deadend job,
gambling debt
etc
etc
etc.
So many etceteras, too many etceteras
as if they grew abundantly wild and mad
on some etcetera bush.
Each etcetera another problem on Artie’s list of laments.
Another reason
another excusefor Artie’s decision to die.
And die he did.
But somehow he came back
as a hen-his human soul and thoughts intact.
And he or should I say shecame to know the pain of laying eggs
and of being a randy old rooster’s favorite.

Missing an opposable thumbwith which to grasp
Artie the ex man now hen
yearned for the sweet release of the farmer’s axe.
Until she realized that her next life might be even worse than either this or the last.
and the absurdity of all it all made her laugh and laugh
or,rather, cluck and cluck.

She fell in love with Roger the randy old rooster and his rustic charms
and she made many a friend with all sorts of hens
and found herself
no longer lonely,very much lucky in love,
She adored her job as a free-range chook,had no gambling debt
and when she died- she was a grandmother hen

Her next life came and she was
once again human.
Brought back to bring peace to the earth.
And ,of course,
just as her job was begun
she was assassinated
by some nut job with a gun.

One night
one road
no cops
one crowd
two driver
sone smash
one crash
two corpsest
two funerals

Chicken.

Sir-you are no chicken-
why you are little more-than a frog-in a bog-
surrounded by bees, harebells -
and me- I sip-tea -from the finest Sevres.
You and me? – that would be- farm life.

There once was an old lady
who owned a white rooster
which she took for long walks in a black pram.

One windy evening,
as she sat on her verandah,
cradling the rooster in her arms,
a neighbourhood crowd began to gather around.
She bore them no mind
and spoke to the rooster in such a soft voice
that nobody could hear what she said

“She’s crazy!” yelled some yellow-toothed kid
and the neighbors all laughed
and threw rubbish and insults at the old lady.

Covered in garbage, she began to sing to the rooster.
But now her voice was a river of blood
that washed away all of the neighbours’ secret pains and fears.
Their laughter and everything else stopped, even the wind.
There was only her voice.

Only her voice singing an old Irish ballad
as the rooster slept in her arms.

Bwuck! Bwuck! Bwuck!
On this cold green ground, oh woe!
Poor me- a fowl who is not foul
but fine of feather and temperament.
Could this be the winter of my discontent?

But, No! Death be not proud
you shall have no dominion over this little chickadee.
For whom does the axe fall?
Not for me, Bub, no sireee!

I will gather six hundred of the best chickens: hens and roosters,
the finest that you ever did see and then
half a farm, half a farm, half a farm onwards!
Into the Valley of Death, the six hundred (and one) shall go.

Hang on a moment, half a farm, half a farm, half a farm
is three halves of a farm which means
we would have run off the farm.
Come to think of it, going into the “Valley of Death” does seem a bit daft
when one wants to keep on living until old age.

No, we will run those three halves and keep on running.
We are chickens after all.

Charles Chickowski: Drunken Rooster In Love. (Rewrite)

I woke up with this fuzzy caterpillar-like taste in my beak
and Penny the wild hen by my side.

Man, if Helen of Troy had a been a hen
she would have this hen.
If Shakespeare wrote sonnets for poultry,
Penny would have been his finger-lickin’ muse.

I thought it might be love.
But,for a hen,
she was far too much of a hell cat
for this little red rooster.

After a while,
I ended up wishing that she were in Hell,
running around without her head.